Values Development Through Science Education: Application of Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm in Science Classrooms

Abstract

Students should be developed into future-ready change agents who can translate their deep insights into meaningful actions. Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP), with its root in the spiritual practices of Ignatius of Loyola, is frequently deployed to facilitate students’ internalization of learning and has been widely studied. However, relatively few efforts have been paid on how IPP could be implemented in the context of content-rich school subjects. The current study contributes to the discussion of subject-based values education by examining the implementation of IPP in the junior science classes of a local secondary school. A teacher’s operationalization of IPP in science lessons in a junior secondary class that aims at developing junior secondary students’ Nature of Science (NOS) understanding was illustrated. It is of particular interest that the students were provided with the opportunities to translate their NOS understanding into values generally applicable to different spheres of their life through reflection-based interventions comparable to spiritual direction. Students’ reflective journals and qualitative interviews were used to understand students’ growth. The data were iteratively coded for salient patterns to emerge, which will be preliminarily reported in this paper. The current study distinguishes itself by foregrounding the impact of the developed values on science learning. This study also attempts to de-segregate between spiritual and values education and the more traditional academic subjects. The insights of such interdisciplinary endeavours should provide an impetus for the academic dialogues on values education.